The Ruins of History
by thirteenxwishes
Summary: In the shattered remains of a world plagued by the horrors of modern warfare, Sesshoumaru pays a visit to one of his more... interesting agents. Will salvation come from an unexpected source? AU
1. The Ruins of History

**Disclaimer:** Don't own Inuyasha - all credit to Rumiko Takahashi, etc.

_A/N_: Written for ebony_silks, where the challenge prompt was 'Nightshade'. Consider this an experiment. :) Apologies for errors and general stylistic blah; a month of writer's block appears to have issued deadly consequences. x.x Anyone who points stuff out? Much love will be given. Possibility for continuation/expansion? Yes.

Characters: Sesshoumaru/Kagome. Word count, 2,235.

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**The Ruins of History**

The dark alleys of the city were at their most dangerous at night. When the dirtiest dregs of society crawled out from between the cracks of the shattered world with their knives and guns and youkai weapons, stealing through shadow and silence after anyone who was suicidal enough to take his life in his hands and leave the shelters after the sun dipped below the horizon.

It didn't matter to him, though. No-one would dare touch Sesshoumaru Taisho. He stalked the streets regardless of the movement of the sun. He didn't care about the radiation left over from the last bomb drop. He didn't care about the miko-assassins - or the youkai ones for that matter. He didn't care about the whispers of poison that lurked in the broken shells of empty buildings.

In fact, there was only one thing in the world he was remotely bothered about at all: killing the bastard responsible for causing all of these many unfortunate things to happen in the first place. Which explained why he was walking through the west side of Tokyo - affectionately dubbed the death zone - with two swords sitting comfortably at his hip and eyes locked on the road ahead. Every so often, figures shifted in the gaps between ruined houses; he knew they were tracking him, could feel the burn of their eyes as they followed his progress through abandoned street after abandoned street. Once, a youkai was impertinent enough to trace a sniper rifle on his back, red dot vivid against his white shirt.

His poison whip was eerily bright in the blackness of the evening. Those watching shuddered and moved away, accustomed to the scent of death but not to the one who brought it so easily to a member of Naraku's killing guild.

Sesshoumaru flicked his claws to rid them of invisible blood and turned right, up the steps that lay beneath the remains of what looked like a torii gate. The stumps were blackened and burnt, carved with the graffiti of the hopeless - because who could place belief in religion while living in a world left for dead?

At the top of the hill, he found a wasteland. The grass was dead, yellow and wilted where there was once a rolling stretch of vibrant green. Trees loomed, branches bare and sickly; there was one he thought he recognised from many centuries ago, something about the missing patch of bark in the centre of its trunk. His brother had been pinned in a similar place by an arrow for a few hundred years - at least until he'd cooled his heels enough to be freed by Tenseiga.

Sesshoumaru frowned. Was it this one? He couldn't be sure. Regardless, it was dying now. Slowly, surely, he could feel the life dripping away drop by tortuous drop from its aura, a horrible, drawn-out demise. Ill-fitting. Disgusting. His claws bit into his palms.

This was what they were fighting to end. He had to remind himself every so often, when plans and attacks and anarchy mingled together inside his mind. The restoration of the Earth couldn't begin if there was no movement. And predictably, his movement was the strongest of them all.

He stepped away from the tree, turned the last corner and stopped. Gold eyes narrowed: the house had obviously been fire-bombed. Planks of wood were rotting, crumbling into ash while windows with no glass yawned, overflowing with the darkness beyond. But downstairs, there was the tiniest flicker of light. His lips twitched into a smile. Of course she would be here.

Getting inside was remarkably easy - the door had been long hanging off its hinges and the miko barrier surrounding the property had no effect on him whatsoever. But, he reflected as he stepped casually into the hallway, maybe it was a good thing he hadn't brought Inuyasha after all. It was one of the more formidable barriers he'd encountered since the Fall, full of anger and potent warning. Having to deal with a human half-brother on this most important of nights would be utterly unacceptable.

The candlelight flickered in the living room, guttering in the exhale of the person beyond the door.

"You can come in, you know."

He never had been one to decline such an obvious invitation. The room was bare aside from a moth-eaten sofa and a thin blanket bundled across dusty cushions. The stump of a candlestick was jammed into the remains of the carpet. She was sat next to it, legs tucked up to her chin and black hair falling in a dilapidated curtain across her face.

His first thought was that she looked very small, for one with such a reputation.

"512."

"Lord Sesshoumaru." Her drawl was lazy and rasping. "How nice of you to lower yourself to my standards." One hand swept out, indicating the tumbledown room and its perilous roof. He snorted.

"Believe me when I say that this state of affairs is entirely unwilling."

He caught the hint of a smirk beneath that cascade of hair. She still hadn't acknowledged him.

"Why am I not surprised."

"Your surprise or lack of it is of no consequence." He needed to get straight down to business. "Do you have it?"

At this, she did look up, pinning him with a resigned blue glare, half-hearted indignation sparking beneath the surface. He saw the sarcasm flash before it came spilling out of her frowning mouth.

"And which specific 'it' would that be?"

His claws once again became acquainted with his palms. He had forgotten exactly how infuriating dealing with this woman could be.

"It would be beneficial to your health to be wholly co-operative, agent. Need I remind you of where your allegiance lies?"

She scoffed, thin arms unwinding from her legs to drop flat hands against the grubby floor.

"Not with that bastard, for sure. You may have my help, but you have yet to earn my loyalty, _my lord_."

Her mocking tone was beginning to grate on his nerves. Some of his agitation disappeared as she got to her feet, brushing away a little of the dirt covering her torn trousers. Although she really was very skinny, he noted, watching her walk to one of the redundant windows and stop in the meagre patch of moonlight pooling on the floor. Despite being one of their best agents, she was unpredictable, stubborn... strong.

He admitted that much. Grudgingly.

But he didn't understand her. At all. He remembered the day they picked her up, if only because of the hand-shaped burn he'd earned after 'rescuing' her from a group of looters on the south side. It had been so very long since he'd been marked by purification that he immediately recruited her based on that level of power alone.

He didn't realise at the time exactly how irritating her personality was going to be. If he had, he may just have left her for the looters, skills and all. There were moments when he still thought this - when she refused to listen to his orders or answered back with her smart mouth and annoyingly quick wit. But then he reminded himself of the endless number of situations in which she had been invaluable; the number of times she had indirectly saved his life.

Not that she was going to be informed of that particular fact any time soon.

Despite these things, she hadn't been happy to be saved. She still wasn't, he observed, watching the stiff line of her spine as the rosy scent of purification began to collect in the air. Her palms were glowing steadily over the remaining chunks of windowsill, concentrating on a group of soil-filled pots sitting in a crooked line.

Why?

Why wasn't she happy to be living? To be fighting? She was lucky to survive at all so late in the war.

The question was unexpected. He hadn't asked himself before - too busy with organising the movement, picking up new fighters and sliding them into the ornate plan that was weaving itself around Naraku like a haphazard net, holes and all. Now, finally, the lines were tight and closing, and he had time to think about such mundane things as the motivation behind his agents and their reasons for revenge. But that little question - that small, insignificant 'why' - opened the floodgates, and suddenly his mind was crowded with many, many others, some big and small and all conspiring to use the formidable force of his innate curiosity against him.

How very irritating.

"I don't know what the hell you're thinking about so hard, but can you stop staring at my ass while you're doing it? Thanks."

He blinked, momentarily considering murder. Was the woman insane?

Probably.

The light pouring from her hands was cut off abruptly. He glanced beyond her, to the greenery now filling the empty windowpane. Flowers bloomed purple and gold - she brushed one absently, testing it with her fingers. She was obviously satisfied as her hand curled to yank viciously on the stem, unearthing the plant and sending the pot toppling to the floor. The root scattered earth in the moonlight.

"Here. Deadly nightshade, miko style. Use the root - it'll burn that bastard for certain."

He moved across the room in the work of a moment, examining his prize before plucking it from her crushing grip. Blue eyes watched him with all the perception of a predator, all the wariness of something hunted.

She really was a study in contradiction. His curiosity grew.

"Why do you fight him?"

The question spoke itself. Her eyes widened, narrowed and blanked within the space of a second.

"Since when do you care?"

Evasion only irritated him further.

"I appreciate answers when I deign to ask you a question, 512."

"I appreciate my privacy, _sir_."

"You will tell me."

"No. Why do you want to know?"

Her frustration was a spice in the still air, tempered by the scent of... fear? His eyes sharpened.

"What are you afraid of?"

Now anger. Not unexpected. This was 512, after all.

"Again, why do you care? Just take the damn nightshade and piss off!"

Claws curled around her chin, shoving it upwards to meet his cool gaze. He watched her words fail and smirked inwardly.

"512."

"Shut up." Her voice shook and stank of bitterness. His claws pricked his cheeks, drops of blood welling and crawling across her skin like crimson tears. She met his eyes, furious. "What right have you to ask me this? You never bothered before, so _leave it_."

His fingers twitched at the barely veiled venom in her voice. However, Sesshoumaru was more intrigued by the old pain hiding in the lines of her face. He knew more than most that none had been lucky enough to escape the horror of Naraku's influence - but seeing it close up was another matter entirely.

Catching himself straying too close to personal sympathy, he pulled back with a disgusted snort. Why else did he give them numbers, if not to keep his distance?

"You would do well to remember your place."

"Yeah. Everyone's beneath you, Sesshoumaru. Maybe you'd do well to look down every so often. Might do your attitude some good."

He narrowed his eyes, fingers tightening around the nightshade.

"Watch your mouth."

Her sarcasm had apparently returned with a vengeance. Sesshoumaru could see it in the curl of her smile, the cold blue gleam regarding him with iron-willed indifference.

"Yes, my lord."

There was something oddly unfinished hanging in the air - something unresolved. It irritated him, but he didn't have the time to stop and address it. Naraku was waiting, and the poison in the plant would debilitate his forces for a short time only. As he turned to leave, her voice reached him from across the room.

"Oh, by the way?"

He paused despite himself. Why did he put up with this annoying woman?

"Go and kill those bastards."

Something in her voice made him turn around. What he saw almost forced him to look twice. Her chin was held high, back straight, regal and arrogant. Black hair fell about her in waves and her eyes - her eyes were afire, blazing at him with power and determination.

She was a glory.

For the first time in a while, he asked himself: _'Who is she?'_ His brow crinkled beneath the surprising weight of the question. Yes, 512 was an enigma. It had always been like this, but now... it was more? He wasn't sure. Somewhere along the line, his unspoken rule - his unspoken distance - had grown slack. It was lax of him to leave it unnoticed. But another look at those eyes, that strength - and he wavered. Maybe it would be beneficial to continue pushing for answers. Maybe.

For now, though, he had work to do.

"I will require your presence at headquarters before the end of the week, regardless of the outcome."

... but that didn't mean he wouldn't find out. Later. Because if there was one thing that Sesshoumaru refused to do, it was give up.

"Tch. Whatever. Get out of here and leave me alone."

He slanted her a look which said clearly how little he appreciated her smart mouth before striding out of the door, out of the house. The nightshade was tucked in a pocket. A mobile phone replaced it.

"Inuyasha."

_"About time, bastard. Hurry up!"_

"Be ready."

He hung up to avoid overexposure to his half-brother's vulgar personality. Behind him, he felt eyes on his back and smirked. She was watching from the window, hidden by the curling green of the nightshade plants - it was oddly befitting of her barbed nature, of the power hiding in that deceptively small frame.

Miko 512 didn't look away until he reached the shrine steps.

... maybe he wasn't the only one who was curious.

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Reviews and criticism welcomed. :) Thanks for reading!


	2. Disaster Zone

**Disclaimer:** Don't own Inuyasha - all credit to Rumiko Takahashi, etc.

_A/N_: I've given in to the advice of a number of friends/reviewers and decided to dabble a little more in this universe - so, happily or not, 'Ruins' is now a collection of loosely related oneshots. ^^ Spent a long time wondering if it'd be better to post the continuations separately to preserve the impact of the original, but in the end I decided it would be better to keep everything neat and tidy. Call me pedantic, why don't you? xD

Anyway, this was written for ebony_silks, where the challenge prompt was 'Arquebus/Weapon'. Beta-read by the _wonderful _swasdiva, without whom I would probably have given up on this entire thing by now. *big hugs* Thank you!

Word count: 2,365.

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**Disaster Zone**

They were surrounded.

Sesshoumaru snarled, flexing his claws around the grip of his sword as he shifted restlessly from foot to foot, keen eyes searching for any gap in the enemy lines. Naraku had planned this ambush well.

Too well.

Well enough to have known that this patrol was short-staffed and isolated, venturing beyond the meagre protection of the ruined city. His gaze darted to the panting group of inuyoukai at his shoulder.

'_Damn it.'_

The forest lining their path was a possible escape route - but beyond the trees sat many pairs of glittering eyes, numbers masked by a veil of thick shouki. On the other side, a sheer cliff plunged down into a fast-flowing river, leaving them neatly boxed in with their enemies. The water was a victim of Naraku just as much as they were: miasma floated in grotesque clouds on the surface, sickly purple. It was unsafe - even for youkai, he admitted. Reluctantly. If only it were him alone, escape wouldn't be an issue; but he had a group of strong, loyal fighters at his command and he in turn had a duty to bring them back to their families. Preferably alive.

And he was nothing if not honourable.

The horde of youkai assassins spanned the entire cliff path and were slowly forcing them backwards until they began to brush shoulders with every strike. The tide of their opponents was almost endless; it didn't matter how many they killed. They just kept coming. The blank quality of their eyes, the loose movements that risked death by claw, whip and fang suggested they were yet another group fallen victim to Naraku's brainwashing. It sickened him, even as he cut them down.

"My lord!"

The cry was as familiar as the hilt of his sword: Katsuki, one of his generals. It came from the other side of their small group, and he easily cut a swathe towards the call. He caught sight of the dark-haired inuyoukai, but faltered, teeth clenching as he followed the line of his pointing finger towards the horizon.  
A distinctive plume of deadly violet was blossoming, rising almost lazily upwards into the sky. Flames leapt hungrily from the ground, and as he watched another explosion wracked that distant point, forcing the curve of the earth to rupture and crack beneath the strain. Poison hissed.

To his right, Katsuki swore loudly.

"Miasma bombs…" The younger warrior trailed off with dawning horror. "And that's-"

"The human settlement." Sesshoumaru's eyes were dark and hooded, locked onto the destruction of one of Tokyo's final underground strongholds. "There will be few survivors, if any." His youkai senses could see the tunnels collapsing, feel the shudder of the ground as bunkers were crushed beneath the weight of crumbling soil. Death and shouki burned on the air. Too far away to reach them here, but-

A flurry of arrows brushed by and immediately Sesshoumaru was moving again. He knew they had precious little time to dwell on the bombings in the middle of battle, but that didn't make it any easier.

There was a sudden pressure against his back; distinctive armour dug into him, and he counted off the spikes mid-swing to identify the patrol member. Katsuki had followed him.

"Were any of our patrols protecting the settlement, my lord?"

His grip around his sword tightened.

"Perhaps."

The general cursed bitterly. Agreeing silently with his assessment, Sesshoumaru looked away and kept fighting. The sooner they escaped the ambush, the sooner they could exercise damage control over the latest bomb-site.

"My lord!"

This time, the cry didn't come from the warrior at his back but from one of the other fighters – the youngest, Jirou, barely old enough to serve on patrol. He was on the outskirts of the battle where the opposition was thinner, and so was first to catch the burn of purity skirting through the trees. The cloud of oppressive shouki lifted. The youkai they were fighting edged away from the forest, wary. A few got too close to the sheer cliff and slipped, tumbling down into the river like stones cast away by a churlish pup.

Sesshoumaru smirked. The tide was turning.

"512."

The youkai in front of him bared its teeth, lunging - and fell just as quickly with an explosive bang, revealing the miko in question standing behind it. She shook the smoke away from the barrel of an ornate wooden rifle, shaking her head in distaste. Whether at him or the weapon, he couldn't be sure. He raised an eyebrow.

"You have an arquebus?"

She snorted.

"You try finding a longbow in this hellhole that lasts longer than five minutes in a fight."

He took a moment to examine her choice of weapon. The musket-style gun was ancient and slender, its long barrel carved with intricate designs – constellations, curling vines and flowers inked in pastel enamel. The firing mechanism gleamed burnished gold.

It struck him as a rather feminine form of gun, one he wouldn't expect a woman as… unique as her to carry. And that wasn't even considering its rarity; antique shot-weapons were difficult to find in a world under Naraku's iron fist. Life and death were dictated by the slash of the sword, as if the samurai classes had woken from their centuries of sleep to a new feud and new masters who were so very much more than simple human daimyo. Their descendants really didn't know what they were getting themselves into when they closed their fists around the hilts of their newly forged swords. Especially since modern guns happened to be much more convenient than relics like hers.

Another wave of mindless youkai barrelled towards them. The swift rapport of 512's arquebus – the musket bullets glowing eerily – cut their numbers down to half. The rest fell easily to his sword. He slanted a glance at the rather ruffled miko.

"An oddly accurate weapon."

She brought the butt of the gun to her shoulder again and fired, the spray of bullets rescuing Jirou from the creeping footsteps of an assassin. Sesshoumaru caught the spinning motion as they flew by, and had the answer to his question before she spoke. She said it anyway.

"The barrel's rifled. Can't be worrying about accuracy when there are youkai to kill."

"Hn."

Another few minutes of stubborn silence passed, at odds with the noisy clashing of blades, the hiss of bullets and humming arrows cutting through air and unguarded flesh. Eventually, Katsuki broke it. He spoke tentatively, eyeing the blue haze surrounding her bullets with some unease.

"I'm assuming you came to us through the forest?"

Sesshoumaru scoffed to himself. Trust Katsuki to want confirmation of the obvious; the inuyoukai was a first-class fighter, but his pedantic tendencies were well-known, both to himself as his superior and the fighters serving beneath him.

The miko simply looked at him, blue eyes flat.

"You could say that." She shrugged, firing off another round. "Don't know why you didn't just charge it yourselves. There weren't that many waiting for you; probably more here now."

"So it's a clear route?"

A sardonic grin uncurled across her face, almost hidden by the curve of her gun. "Unless you count bodies."

The general relaxed fractionally, grey eyes crinkling. Sesshoumaru surveyed the thinning number of enemies; each of his patrol members could now be seen clearly through the crowd. This situation under almost under control, which meant-

His smooth flow of thought was rudely interrupted by a bullet whistling centimetres away from his ear. When he caught the scent of his own singed hair, he growled, spinning on his heel to confront a certain miko agent - only to find her frozen, gun limp in her hands as she stared at the smoke-filled sky above the horizon. Her lips parted soundlessly. He was forced to take out an enemy only a breath away from cutting her down, and slid to a halt smartly by her side.

"512."

His sharp intonation was a reprimand she didn't notice. He tried again, a growl of irritation hiding between his words. They really didn't have time for this.

"512!"

And suddenly she was moving, the butt of her gun coming up and knocking out anyone standing in her way. The wood crackled with power – by the time she reached the edge of the main group, those she hit were crumbling away into dust, their screams nothing but whispers on the wind.

With a growl, he kept fighting. The swing of his sword mirrored the motion of his thoughts as he debated whether to follow the impulsive miko. There were only a few of Naraku's fighters left now, enough for the patrol to cope with by themselves...

Katsuki looked at him from above the spinning line of his longstaff, waiting for orders. He sighed.

"Stay here and finish these off. I will search for any patrol members that may live."

The tactic made sense. He could search for their troops and save the hapless 512 at the same time. Sesshoumaru killed four with a slice of his sword as he turned, launching himself through the gap left by the scattered soldiers.

The miko was surprisingly swift for a human; she'd managed to cover a fair distance by the time he caught up with her, but not quite far enough to reach the burning expanse of ground above the settlement.

"512, I gave you an order-"

"-and since when do I listen to your orders, sir, when other things are more important!"

She was still running, looking over her shoulder and glaring at him, eyes narrowed. But the anger was missing, instead replaced by… fear?

He blinked, his own annoyance momentarily halted in its tracks.

On the horizon, the wreckage spread out before them and 512 sped up, feet pounding desperately along the remains of the cliff path. He kept pace easily. Golden eyes surveyed the yawning chasm torn open by Naraku's bombings, the inner workings of the underground settlement laid bare to the eyes of the world like an overturned anthill. He could see countless bodies. Miraculously, some were still moving. Some.

There was nothing visible to identify any patrol members. The weight of loss and responsibility punched through him with all the strength of a bullet, settling like cold iron in his stomach. He forcibly turned his attention to the agent at his side.

_'Act now, reflect later.'_

512 was looking down at the massacre with abject horror. Her fingers clenched spasmodically around the grip of her arquebus, and he thought he could hear the minute grind of teeth above the roar of flames and the whimpers of the dying.

"That bastard." Her voice hissed, mingling with the fire. "This is revenge for the nightshade poisoning, isn't it?" She looked at him sharply when he didn't answer. "_Isn't it?_"

He counted breaths, remaining impassive in the face of her outburst.

"Fifty of his best troops died. Naraku favours retribution... you should know this by now, 512."

"Who cares about that!" Helplessness passed across her face like a shadow, captured in the smoke rising from the crater. The mechanism of the arquebus clicked. He snorted, looking away from the miko's obvious loss of composure. She was no use as an agent if she didn't maintain her focus. Removal of emotion was necessary to deal with situations like this, a fact he'd learned all too well during his time as leader of this revolutionary band.

He thought she'd learned it too. Always cynical, always efficient, never failing to return from each of her missions with the information he needed, the sabotage performed, the death he desired. This was his image of her - not the fuming woman standing to his right.

Unfortunately, experience isn't always the clearest path. All he heard was her gun dropping to her side, sliding along the coarse material of her combat trousers. He assumed that the usual 512 had returned, reeled herself in like the agent she was to cope with this, the next in a series of fresh horrors.

But Sesshoumaru made one vital mistake as he stood and watched the unearthed tunnels burn: he forgot that when it came to Miko 512, his assumptions were usually wrong. _Very_ wrong. This time was no exception.

"Shit," she said. His eyes slid right.

"Shit." Again. She was steeling herself for something; he vaguely hoped it was a productive something rather than a stupid one. Even he wasn't able to stop her iron war-machine of a will when it began to crank into life.

"512-"

Too late. The agent was already running, charging down the slope and straight into the deadly heart, her thin silhouette swamped by the poisonous smoke.

Many thoughts battled for his voice, eventually rolling out as a formless snarl of frustration.

_'Idiotic wench!'_

Muscles strained. He wasn't going to do this for her; at least, not for 512 the woman. But 512 the agent, perhaps...

His curiosity was still alive and kicking - and Sesshoumaru Taisho was no cat to be killed at its expense. He afforded one last glance over his shoulder at the victorious group on the ridge before following her, in the vain hope that some of their patrol members yet lived.

It wasn't for her.

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Reviews and criticism welcomed. :) Thanks for reading!


	3. Brace for the Aftermath

**Disclaimer:** Don't own Inuyasha - all credit to Rumiko Takahashi, etc.

_A/N_: This, combined with 'Chantefable', is quickly becoming my retreat from the madness of RL. As well as my other chaptered fics, which are currently sitting behind a rather large wall of writer's block. They _will_ be updated eventually, I promise. For anyone waiting. I don't think there will be after all this time, but hey. xD

Anyway, this wasn't written for any particular prompt; it just needed to happen. Hopefully the events aren't too boring for you? ^.~

Un-beta'd - which brings me to a humble request. Readers, I have two questions - do you think: a. the characterisation of Kagome and Sesshoumaru is consistent from one chapter to the next? And... b. do you think their relationship is progressing at a 'realistic' rate so far? I.e. slowly. xD I can't answer these myself as I'm too close to the story, and my dear beta is busy... so I can only rely on you guys. Please give me your honest opinions, and I'll try my best to reward you with an improved story - and possibly prompt requests, if you have any?

Thanks in advance, and enjoy!

Word count: 3,524.

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**Brace for the Aftermath**

The darkness in his office was absolute.

Sifting through the makeshift papers, Sesshoumaru blinked away his weariness and reached for the battered feather quill and dipped it carefully into his precious pot of ink. Somewhere across the grid of tunnels spanning the underside of the city, the morning signal bell tolled. It soon spread, each new watchpost taking up the call until the entire bunker was resounding with the rhythmic peal that always seemed to dictate the timing of their lives. Through the walls, he heard the usual spectrum of wakefulness; sleepy yawns and grumbles, alarm, eagerness to be up and moving. So many different reactions... and yet...

His eyes drifted to the line of harsh burns, dull against the skin of his right arm. He refused a bandage - their small hospital couldn't afford to waste resources on those who didn't need them. But now, looking at the reminder of their failure was as bitter as ash in his throat. The news wasn't widely known yet but it would be by the afternoon. The grief would be tangible, to the point where he couldn't take a breath without being reminded of exactly how royally they'd screwed up. Even he hadn't expected Naraku to retaliate so soon. And not at a human settlement, of all places. An eye for an eye. Sesshoumaru set down his quill, a hand running through his hair and tangling in the oddly lank strands.

Many of their human number had family there.

Footsteps halted outside his door. He dropped his arm, composed his face as the plywood rattled on its runners, admitting a figure bearing a breakfast tray. He accepted it with a nod and returned to his papers as the kitchenwoman stepped back into the corridor without a word. She didn't need any; her scent told him everything that speech couldn't. She already knew about the night before. The odd mixture of grief, pain and denial was obvious, hanging around her like funerary incense. Had she lost someone? Had Naraku claimed yet another loved one? What if-

His famous iron will clamped down on his thoughts before they could go any further.

_'Keep your distance.'_

The words were no comfort. They only served to remind him of the other aspect of their failure - _his_ failure. He could well remember the fragile weight of a certain agent balanced against the crook of his arm, her skin dark under the crushing weight of poison. His own had blistered easily against the assault of her reiki fighting to purify the miasma she'd inhaled - but there was too much. He'd left her beyond the boundary of the fallout and returned to dig out the bodies of humans and their fallen patrol alike. There was nothing he could do for the stupid woman. She was practically dead anyway.

Or so he'd thought, until he returned to find her gone. The legend of 512 lived on - but under her own steam or called back by Naraku as a puppet, he didn't know. Either that or she really was dead.

_'But that blasted woman is too annoying to die.'_

His office suddenly seemed very close, the air thin and stifling.

Sesshoumaru stood, stalking through the darkness and out into the bright artificial light of the tunnel. His private walkway wasn't busy, but the flow of people grew as he descended the stairs to enter the main thoroughfare. He still made swift progress; spies, warriors, assassins and servants alike stepped aside to allow him passage. The fluorescent lights set into the ceiling passed in a blur as he sped up, sweeping around corners and ducking beneath the uncomfortably low ceilings. The tunnels grew quieter. Only one or two people in every section now, most wearing the white overalls of the hospital, arms loaded with crates full of watered down medicine or recycled syringes. Another corner, and another - and a familiar scent flooded his senses, whispering power and secrets and danger. His step didn't falter but he did look over his shoulder, eyes searching for any obvious sign of 512.

There was nothing there.

_'Obviously.'_

He kept walking. The lights grew brighter as he neared the hospital; the heady herbal scent stung his nose, and he could hear the bustling of their four healers as they dosed up the patients with the plants collected from the few pockets of vegetation still alive, right on the very edges of Japan. The seedlings they'd planted to grow in the tunnels were slow to sprout without the sun, and after last night were nowhere near enough to cope with the injured.

Nothing was enough to cope with the injured.

The sight that greeted him when he stepped into the small ward wasn't one he particularly wanted to see again. Humans and youkai alike were laid out on a messy row of pallets, sweating and shaking; in the corner, shrouds fluttered in the cooling breeze created by a young wind youkai, giving glimpses of cold flesh marred by injuries beyond the mortal. It stank, of blood and herbs and death.

"Lord Sesshoumaru!" Their head healer halted by his side, weariness and uncertainty in every movement where there was normally a smile and good cheer. The shadows beneath her eyes were testament to the effort it took to keep the wounded alive - the bat hanyou was almost swaying on her feet.

"Report, Shiori."

Her shoulders slumped imperceptibly. That told him everything he needed to know.

"Of the fifty advance guard that accompanied you on the patrol, twenty have died and a further fifteen are seriously injured. The auxiliary fared better... only five of them are dead from the poison. But the patrol around the human colony..." Her face pinched, one hand gesturing helplessly at the fluttering shrouds.

He nodded once, jaw clenched. Naraku would pay.

"How are supplies?"

If possible, Shiori looked even more harried than before.

"Low. We barely have enough herbs left to make poultices for the serious cases, let alone the rest. We've run out of liquid medicine, have to recycle the syringes-" She ticked off the problems on her fingers, lost. "-and we're on our last few rolls of bandages. It isn't good, my lord."

He was silent, eyes roving across the wounded lying in front of him. For once in his life, Sesshoumaru felt helpless. And he _hated_ it.

"Problems... _sir_?"

That insolent drawl could only belong to one person. One person who really couldn't be here, unless she was barely alive and ready to beg for treatment. Neither of these turned out to be true; his senses told him she was standing in the door, breathing normally and with a heart beating regularly. No sign of poison.

"512." His eyes narrowed. "A surprise to see you alive, I must admit. Go to my office and wait there. Your brief will be sent shortly."

The dismissal only earned him a quiet scoff as the woman took a step inside the ward. Shiori glanced from him to 512, perplexed and more than a little awed. The woman was a myth in herself to those who knew about her. Stubborn and cynical and damn near impossible to predict - her kill rate was high enough to surpass almost every youkai in his employ. He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed, blocking out the scent of old blood and reiki.

"512."

She rolled her eyes. "Fine, whatever. Whether I'll still be here when you've finished cleaning up this mess, _sir_, is another matter entirely."

That crossed the line. He growled, spinning on his heel - but she was already gone, the edge of a black cloak disappearing around the corner as her presence receded along the corridor. He was inclined to go after her, if only to enforce his will over the annoying bitch. He was stopped in his tracks by Shiori.

"Oh!"

The bat hanyou started forwards, disbelieving as she reached out to the bundles of green sitting conspicuously on one of the cluttered tables. The herbs were fresh, verdant and healthy as if they'd barely been plucked from the ground. He observed neutrally as Shiori catalogued them, separating stalks almost reverently with her dainty claws.

"Bellwort... fireweed... hardhack leaves... hops... bird pepper... how on _earth_..." She trailed off, looking up at him with a measure of amazement. "My lord, some of these plants aren't even native, and yet-"

"Will they be enough?" He cut her off abruptly, eyes intent. She looked back, cautious hope blooming open before him.

"Maybe."

He nodded once, and departed. The journey back through the tunnels to his office blurred. The morning rush parted like the sea before his speed, and moments later he was throwing open the sliding door, gaze narrowed and piercing through the darkness.

Blue eyes looked back at him from where 512 had propped herself against the wall, arms crossed and one leg supporting the other. Her outline was blurred by the black cloak, so much so that even with his superior vision she seemed to melt into the background of his office. He watched the haughty smirk kick up the corner of her full lips.

"Go on, then."

His fingers itched to wrap around her throat.

"Smugness does not become you, 512."

"Neither does hanging around these dingy old tunnels in a boat cloak." She jerked one shoulder in a half-shrug. "Life's cruel. Deal with it."

"I know Shiori and the other healers didn't treat you after you disappeared from the settlement yesterday." He surveyed her from the corner of his eye, and silently sighed at the presence of the boat cloak. If she was Naraku's golem - or being kept alive by some other unnatural means - he would be forced to kill her. He couldn't be too careful. The years had taught him that much. "How are you still alive?"

She barked a laugh, turning away to face his desk and the far wall. It was a surprisingly bitter sound and grated harshly on his ears.

"Does it matter? I'm here and ready to do your bidding like a good little ally, oh mighty Lord Sesshoumaru. Shouldn't that be enough for you?"

God, this woman made him angry.

"The amount you took in digging through the ruins was more than enough to kill a human. You were covered in burns. Whether you can still do my bidding or not is irrelevant. If you have been resurrected as Naraku's minion, however-"

"Resurrected? Naraku's _minion?_ As if I would _ever_ accept an offer from him!" Her angry hiss was almost welcome. "And who says I was dead in the first place, sir? If you really want to know, my powers reduce the potency of the miasma-"

"Even if your reiki were cancelling out the miasma, the amount was still far more than necessary to cause death. I carried you away from the bomb-site, and you were dying then-"

"Funnily enough, those herbs I left in the ward are rather good at neutralising miasma."

This conversation was starting to turn into a game of leapfrog. Sesshoumaru was quickly tiring of it.

"And where exactly did a dying miko get those herbs at short notice?" His voice turned silky, sensing he was close to unearthing the truth. He caught her sarcastic smile in the movement of the air.

"Pockets are very useful things."

He smirked, unrelenting.

"Where did you get the herbs?"

If she had some sort of medicinal supply, the benefit to the movement would be great. Lives would be saved. And those lives could very well be the difference between victory and defeat.

"You send me all over the country on your little missions. You can't expect me to just go off and... _sight-see_. Please. I'm a productive kind of girl." She screwed up her nose in distaste, shifting her weight to her other leg. Her voice appeared surprisingly reasonable, but he could easily pick out the underlying mockery. Nothing about her changed. Including the lies.

"Woman. You will cease these pretences."

There was a long moment of silence. 512 kept her eyes on his desk but turned to face him eventually, the hood of the boat cloak falling to reveal muted blue eyes and skin miraculously free of the burns of yesterday.

"I guess she wouldn't mind if I told you now." Something insecure hid behind her face and voice, some of the cynicism falling away and making 512 seem, for just a moment, the same woman he'd met on the night they saved her from the looters. But it didn't last longer than a second - the mask was back up almost immediately, and she shook her head. "Secrets don't matter so much when you're dead, do they?"

He stood in silence, waiting. She huffed a sigh and waved a hand.

"All right. Whatever. In that wreck of settlement, a woman used to live in the western quadrant. She was old and had one eye and-" 512 stopped for a moment, as if searching for words or composure or something else too far beyond her grasp. Whatever it was proved elusive. "Well, she was the bloody best healer you were ever going to come across in this whole cursed country. Her remedies helped so many people in those slums - and me, every once in a while." She smiled quietly to herself, and Sesshoumaru wondered what the joke was. "She grew the herbs in her house with her reiki and seeds passed down to her from her sister, and their mother before her. They were a whole family of healers before the world went to shit. Those bundles in the hospital are the last that she gave me." The smile twisted into a flash of bared teeth. "She didn't want to tie herself to any of the resistance movements because she knew it'd bring the killing guild down on the entire settlement within days, at the very least."

Sesshoumaru arched a brow. It was rare for Naraku to target individuals unless they were of particular worth.

"He knew about her?"

512 gave him a short nod in reply.

"Yeah. Her sister was taken by him. No-one knew why at the time, so they assumed it was for her reiki and healing knowledge-" She grimaced, running one hand over her face. "They never found out the real reason."

Silence ruled again. Sesshoumaru turned the information over in his mind and was more than a little annoyed to find it useless. That house would be long destroyed, along with the woman and her herbs and her knowledge.

512's sudden laugh cut through his thoughts. He looked up to see her features growing black with anger, clearly spreading from behind a split dam somewhere in her impeccable armour.

"But she shouldn't have worried about protecting the people by working alone, should she? Because this resistance movement killed them all anyway. Her struggle was worthless." She spat. "All those years... all that strength. Gone. Just because Naraku fancied a little vengeance for a stunt you pulled and you didn't have the balls to anticipate it."

His anger reared in a crimson tide, the draining emotions of the day finally reaching boiling point after hours of careful restraint. Fingers curled around her neck and slammed her against the wall before he even realised he was moving.

"Do not blame me for an act committed by that bastard," The snarl was loud in the quiet of the tumbledown office. "Their blood is on his hands only. It is his tyranny!"

The woman struggled against his grasp, turned her head and swinging her feet in an effort to kick him or find the floor. Her eyes locked on to his with all the force of a hurricane, barely held reiki humming beneath her skin.

"The nightshade," she choked. "It was because of the nightshade!"

Although she spoke the truth, he couldn't bring himself to admit it. It was a weakness - but a leader had no time to look back and dwell on past mistakes. He tightened his grasp before letting go. It wouldn't do to be purified, either.

"Who is to say that Naraku wasn't going to destroy that settlement even before we decided to use the nightshade to poison his troops?" His voice was deceptively calm. "None can predict his actions. You know that as well as I do, agent. Do not insult my honour."

She pushed herself up from where she had slumped against the wall, pulling her boat cloak back into place as she regarded him through cool blue eyes.

"That doesn't free you from the guilt."

"Or yourself, 512. The nightshade came from you."

She acknowledged that with the bow of her head. He glanced at the papers littering the room from the force of their outburst - his anger and her restrained aura.

"But there isn't anything we can do now." She was resigned, voice steady and flat. "We just have to keep moving on, kill the bastard and then spend time remembering when the world is as it should be."

"Hn." She was right. Her words somehow filled him with the sense of purpose he had been missing since the attack. Knowing it was partly their fault as an organisation had mired him down with the associated responsibility... and, he admitted, the guilt. Even a daiyoukai felt the sting when people died under his watch, no matter how well he managed to hide it beneath layers of ice and cold glares. But the irritating agent with her loud mouth and blue eyes had indirectly forced him to confront it - and his anger - and was now... dare he say, _helping _him by bringing this into the open before others had the chance?

Helping herself too, if her tense shoulders were anything to go by. She wasn't guilt-free. Far from it. She probably wasn't even thinking about the benefit this conversation was giving him. 512 wouldn't consciously do something like that - she'd said it plainly enough when they met in the shrine: _'You may have my help, but you have yet to earn my loyalty.' _And it was true; this was nothing more than a reaction to the death of her friend. Just as he was compensating for his own guilt. Inuyasha would say they were using each other, and he wouldn't be far from the mark.

512 sighed, breaking the momentary lull. Her head fell back as she looked to the low ceiling, obviously finding something there that he never had in all his hours of contemplation - because when she looked at him next, she seemed resolved.

"Her name was Kaede."

Sesshoumaru remained stoic. But his curiosity about this woman and her motivations uncurled itself from his stomach like a waiting beast, remembering their confrontation in the ruined shrine and the story lurking behind her eyes. He still wanted to know more, even now. And he didn't understand _why_.

It was annoying.

She kept talking in that strange, quiet tone, looking away from him as if she were trying to hide something.

"I just need someone to know. She was like a mother to me, and I don't want her to disappear amongst all the other dead people when this is all over. I want someone to remember, if I'm not around to do it."

Her words was heavy, almost as heavy as the weight of her will and it left him mildly surprised.

_'This woman....'_

She was strong. He knew that already. It was only on virtue of this strength that he allowed himself to concede. A nod was all it took, and the signal was enough for her. 512 stood to lazy attention again - the cool agent who gave him no loyalty taking the place of the woman beneath the mask. His unruly ally.

She was smirking.

"Well? What do you want me to do next, _sir_?"

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Reviews and criticism welcomed. :) Thanks for reading!


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